Invictus (12A)

Alison Rowat's Review

After dealing with sporting tragedy in Million Dollar Baby, Clint Eastwood turns his attention to triumph in the shape of South Africa’s victory in the Rugby World Cup of 1995.

It’s a tale of sound, fury, national reconciliation and big men grappling, and if it doesn’t always soar as convincingly as its director would like, it gets the job done.

Morgan Freeman, who plays Mandela and is an executive producer on the film, had initially wanted to bring Mandela’s autobiography, A Long Walk to Freedom, to the screen.

When that proved as impossible as pouring an ocean into a pint pot, he turned to John Carlin’s book, Playing the Enemy: Nelson Mandela and the Game that Made a Nation.

Though the subject became smaller, the ambition to say big things remained. As a result, Invictus has a tendency to overreach itself, to occasionally tug harder on the heartstrings than is strictly necessary.

Such sins of earnestness are forgivable when placed beside the performances, and the sheer class of Eastwood’s filmmaking style. Assembling his Gran Torino team of production designer James J Murakami, editors Joel Cox and Gary D Roach, costume designer Deborah Hopper, and director of photography Tom Stern, Eastwood takes a complex political and sporting story and makes it, for the most part, purr.

His way with a story is at its most impressive in the film’s first act, where in one bold sweep he goes from Mandela’s release in 1990 to the 1994 elections and fears over where this new, still divided South Africa, might be going. “He’s won an election, but can he run a country?” asks one newspaper headline.

And so the true tale of how a game with an odd shaped ball played its part in shaping a nation is up and running. It might be simplistic, but it’s highly effective.

Quickly and confidently, Eastwood and the screenplay by Anthony Peckham sketch in the rest of the story – how the national team, the Springboks, had come to be a hated symbol of apartheid South Africa (in one prize scene, a nice but dim charity volunteer hands a Boks shirt to a black child, who greets it like a signed pic of PW Botha), and how Mandela fixed upon changing attitudes to them as a way of helping to bring the country together.

His ally in this task was the Springboks’ captain Francois Pienaar, played by Matt Damon. Pienaar is a strictly apolitical character; it’s left to his father to represent the views of more sceptical white South Africans. The captain himself receives Mandela’s call to action and answers it unquestioningly.

Damon plays the part of buttoned up yet passionate sportsman convincingly, largely confining emotional displays to the rugby pitch. (He and Freeman both received Oscar nominations this week, but Eastwood and the film did not feature in the best picture or director lists.)

There is one scene, however, where the team is taken to visit Robben Island and Pienaar stands in Mandela’s cell, his arms outstretched, taking in how tiny it is. Here, to powerful effect, Damon allows his character’s mask to slip.

Eastwood is not done with your emotions just yet. William Henley’s poem of the title – “I am the master of my fate, I am the captain of my soul” – given to the team by Mandela as an aide de courage, rings out to glimpses of history’s most famous political prisoner breaking rocks.

If applied to any other human being on the planet all this would be too much, but Mandela’s reputation can take it. Deserves it, indeed.

Other moments in the film, towards the end especially, are further up the hokiness scale and less excusable. As the beginning of the World Cup approaches, all attempts at nuance are booted out of the park, and sentimentality is allowed its head.

There are attempts to add some bite through sub-plots involving Mandela’s bodyguards and their constant fear he will be assassinated, and the efforts of Mandela’s chief of staff (a crisp, lovely turn by Britain’s Adjoa Andoh) to turn his mind to more obviously political matters, but they too are eventually benched.

The final match against New Zealand seems to last as long as the real thing. Even with the added attraction of seeing a certain Kiwi sporting superstar make an appearance, it’s a long haul for the non rugby fan.

While that game went on and on I found myself wondering about a different ball game and another tournament set to take place in South Africa this summer.

As a mood setter, the country could not have asked for a better picture than this.

Nor could Eastwood’s film have had a finer actor to play Mandela than Freeman. The Shawshank Redemption star has been some awe-inspiring characters in his time, but he will never play a greater man than this. By the infinite care he takes it is clear that he knows it, too.

Paul Greenwood's Review

With his third movie as director in the space of just over a year, this time taking on the true story of how Nelson Mandela (Morgan Freeman) used sport as a means to ease racial tensions in South Africa, Clint Eastwood once again delivers a film that’s as well crafted as ever, but one that’s riddled with dramatic weaknesses.

Following Mandela’s release from prison and a potted history of post-apartheid South Africa that begins with his becoming president in 1994, we learn that his early days in office are fraught with difficulty, with mistrust still running deep between blacks and whites.

Matt Damon meanwhile plays Francois Pienaar, the captain of the Springboks national rugby team. With the exception of only one black player, the all-white team still represents apartheid to black South Africa, who refuse to support them, notwithstanding the fact they’re rubbish on the field.

But with the world cup due to be held in South Africa the following year, Mandela sees an opportunity to unite a nation, and looks to Pienaar and his teammates to win the trophy for the entire country.

He tells Pienaar how, during his years in prison, he looked to the words of a 19th century poem, Invictus, which contains such inspirational lines as “I am the master of my fate, I am the captain of my soul.”

This is a film that means tremendously well, but can’t avoid being frequently cheesy and patronising. Eastwood, soon to turn 80, seems to be turning into a dreadful sentimentalist in his old age. So while Invictus can still be moving at times, certain elements really hurt it, especially the inclusion of a truly hideous song, Colorblind, the lyrics of which would embarrass David Brent.

Eastwood’s insistence on filling out many of the roles with non-professional actors can also give it the amateurish feel that blighted Gran Torino. Thankfully, the bulk of the performance work falls on Freeman and Damon, and they are both impressive, especially Freeman who imbues Mandela with tremendous dignity and gravitas while stopping short of doing an impersonation.

Flawed yes, but the inspirational nature of the story can’t help but be effective, and as a tribute to the unifying power of sport and to one of the most important figures of the 20th century, it’s beyond reproach.